


whiskey nights

by wincestgoddess



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Drabble, Gen, POV Second Person, Physical Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:54:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27299803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wincestgoddess/pseuds/wincestgoddess
Summary: Sam's ten when John shows his true colors
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	whiskey nights

You’re ten the first time it happens. 

Before didn’t hold sway because you didn’t know its meaning. You saw him as only your father, the hero Dean painted him as in fairytale stories, the guy who wasn’t around much because he was off saving the world. 

He doesn’t talk to you much. You’re worlds apart; each dinner plate taken to a little motel room while wounds are being stitched outside. 

Dean’s voice is soft and gentle. The whiskey bottle is always around. 

You’ve asked him why he needs it, you don’t understand. Is it for Dad’s wounds, will they help with the pain?

‘Eat your dinner, Sammy,’ he says, tone gentle yet firm. No arguments. No talkback. Go back to your room. Fixing him up is not your job. 

Dean will deal with the backlash, he’ll deal with the pain and slurred words, he’ll deal with the laments and drunken talk. He’ll even deal with the occasional push. 

Dean deals with it all, he spares you the pain.

It’s not until years later down the lane when the first branch breaks.

Your perfect family tree is no longer a fairytale oak, embers shining, leaves green and healthy. The crown had been mom, the picture you stole.

But he raises his voice and it’s different this time. 

You don’t want to leave. Can this town be different? You made friends. You like Mrs. Penn, with a smile always on her face. You’ve grown used to the weather, you know the arcade. 

You’re just a kid, you’re young and you’re naïve and you ask for an extended stay.

Dean tries to intervene. He gets pushed aside for his trouble. 

It’s you facing him down. It’s you staring right into the ugly mask of impatience and reproach and you refuse to go, you’re not scared of him yet.

Why should you be? 

It isn’t until he lays a hand on Dean that your world shatters.

Your tree crumbles right before your very own eyes. 

A betrayal so heavy like nothing you’d ever felt, it settles low, it grips you and won’t let you go. You’re suddenly falling at the sweet age of ten. 

Illusions of a home that maybe wasn’t so broken are torn down, in its place you see the real paintings, the ones Dean had always protected you from.

You see an abandoned post and a shadow. You see an absent father for what he really is and you see your brother, scared and curled up but still coming out of the room to clean up his wounds. 

Always the whiskey.

Always the tears that follow.

Dean doesn’t face you when he sleeps for a reason.

You should’ve known. You should’ve stepped up. But he’s four years older, isn’t he supposed to be the protector?

That’s what he tells himself, that’s what your brother chants during nights when he can’t sleep, when he’s beaten down and resigned and so, so fearful that fateful hand will ever turn to you.

An open hand, a closed fist, a shove to the floor. He’s been through them all.

The weight of these stones, he must carry alone.

You want to scream, you want to punch them both for lying to you but most of all, most of all you want to take him away and tell him to run.

Fourteen and ten is way too young to make it on your own.

Green-eyed boy has no money, he has nothing of his own. What can he offer you out there in the cruel, dark world?

Monsters abound and he cannot protect you. 

It poses a problem now that you know. It’ll be a problem for years to come.

Attempted escapes and relentless fights; all will occur under his abuser’s eyes. 

Because he’ll never give you up, he’ll never let you be the one to take his fall. He won’t even let you take your own fall. 

His only light is you, you realize that now. 

Because everything else, John Winchester’s ripped from his hands.

At night he’ll crawl in bed, no point in facing away from you now.

The tears slip down his eyes and as hard as he tries, the sobs won’t stop their path, from his lips they burst.

A body that’s so marred, is one so broken down. A body that’s so strong, is one where you find love.

His hair is slick, it’s wet with alcohol. 

His arms are bruised, there’s a cut on his lower lip.

Tender age of eleven years old, been a year since you’ve known.

One new bruise every week, it all racks up in twelve months.

And in your arms he lets his walls down, exhausted to the bone.

He’ll whisper in your ear that he’ll take five years more. Ten years. Years of abuse will be worth it just don’t let him get you.

His hands run down your arms, he watches your skin glow. It’s clean, it’s smooth, not yellowed and rough.

In you he finds his comfort.

Green-eyed boy breaks down in your arms. 


End file.
